Company: Transport for London
Timeframe: July 2005
July 7, 2005, should have been a day of cheers and clanging pint glasses in London. The day before, the city learned it had edged out Paris to host the 2012 Olympics.
But any further celebration was shattered that morning when three bombs ripped through the London Underground within three minutes of one another, and a fourth bomb exploded in
a double decker bus less than an hour after the first explosion.
The bombings would leave 52 people dead and over 700 injured. "This was a nightmare," recalls Paul Mylrea, director of group media relations for Transport for London
(TfL). "We didn't know what we were dealing with. We had a major power surge that caused a lot of problems on the central underground. You couldn't see what happened. We had a
feeling this was extremely serious."
Terror Below, Above
Mylrea and the TfL team were not caught unprepared for the crisis. His staff regularly conducts various crisis scenarios at a local college with fire, police and medical teams
and even faux-journalists. For last year's bombings, everyone knew how to respond to the emergency.
The real-life terror began at 8:50am, when a bomb exploded in the Aldgate Tube and killed seven people. A minute later, another explosion at Edgware Road killed six. At
8:53am, 26 people died from a blast at the King's Cross station.
But it wasn't immediately known to officials that destruction was the work of suicide bombers. Mixed reports came in that the train departing from Edgware Road had hit the
tunnel wall.
To maintain calm and coherence, TfL immediately dispatched six press officers in pairs to the Liverpool Street, Russell Square and Edgeware Road stations to handle on-site
media. With the police issuing code amber alert (where all trains are stopped at the next station and passengers are let off), TfL made the decision to shutdown the network.
This left more than 200,000 people simultaneously exiting the underground in the peak of rush hour.
"We got everybody out within a hour," recalls Mylrea. "I've got no reports of any injury. That means we got a quarter-million people out of there without panic and without
injury."
With the Underground halted, TfL shifted its focus to fully utilizing its 6,800 buses, which transport 6.3 million passengers over 700 different routes per day. But that focus
was thwarted when a bomb blast at 9:47am tore through a double decker bus at the junction of Tavistock Square and Upper Woburn place, killing 13 people.
London Calling
The fourth explosion triggered over 200 interview requests from domestic and international media (one every 90 seconds). Furthermore, calls came from concerned individuals,
peaking at the rate of a new call every 30 seconds. The TfL Web site's traffic ballooned from its average 400 hits a day to 56,562 on July 8.
"From then on, we were focusing on informing of what we knew about the system, its impact, what was going to happen," explains Mylrea.
TfL had no choice but to shut down all buses to allow police to conduct extensive security checks. "If you see anything suspicious, you must advise," TfL emphasized to
passengers. In the following hours, TfL disseminated information through multiple joint press conferences with police and the mayor's office, media interviews, sign postings
outside the underground stations, its Web site, and updates in the media.
"The media was a key partner in this and getting the message out quickly enough," says Mylrea.
But the media involvement did not come without a few headaches. Tickers from the 24-hour news channels often broadcasted inaccurate reports, causing Mylrea and his staff to
keep track of erroneous news with immediate corrections and up-to-date information.
After officials conducted security bus inspections, the transportation network returned to operations. "We wanted to send the message that London would not be stopped - that
we would keep going," says Mylrea.
By July 8, 85% of the London Underground was operational, with the remaining 15% still under police investigation. For the next week, the original July 7 staff of 15 to 20 TfL
press officers increased twofold just to handle media interviews. But after that week, TfL returned to normal staffing.
"We wanted to send the message that it was business as usual," says Mylrea of decreasing his staff.
Following the attacks, London transit saw an immediate 15% drop-off in passengers, but within a year recovered to its maximum percentage and actually increased.
Rallying through a crisis, Mylrea credits a clear chain of command, in-place procedures and a "huge team spirit." "The feeling of solidarity and working shoulder-to-shoulder
with operations team got us through it," he says.
Another key component is the intimate relationship Mylrea's department has with TfL senior management - he sits on a weekly management board. "The organization recognizes that
media and PR are essential to getting things done," he says. "We didn't have to create a relationship with senior management when things occurred." They knew it was important to
"have us as the face of London Underground. It was calm. It was resolute. That was huge in getting the message across.".
Contact:
Paul Mylrea, [email protected].
Lessons Learned: Facing Down A Crisis
Crisis communications is often the most serious challenge a PR professional can face. In the event of a crisis, here are some tips to consider:
*Be prepared. Having an up-to-date crisis communications plan and actively participating in mock crises scenarios can prevent PR gaffes in the event a genuine crisis
occurs. Transport for London includes the hypothetical handling of journalists in its regular emergency drills, which proved beneficial in the aftermath of last year's
bomb attacks.
*Be patient. Handling crisis communications requires a great deal of fortitude, particularly when irresponsible media people try to circumvent your authority (two
reporters tried to sneak beyond police barricades after the London bombings to get their own exclusives). Maintain an orderly media operation and engage the media to understand
the difficult circumstances that prevent what would otherwise be a normal flow of news.
*Show concern from the upper levels. In the case of the London bombings, Queen Elizabeth II visited the bombing survivors in London-area hospitals the morning after the
attacks. This showed the British government's concern for its people and the willingness to be on the scene of the crisis. Compare that with President Bush's reaction to
Hurricane Katrina, where nearly a week passed before he showed up in the stricken region to meet with the local politicians (as opposed to those who were left homeless after the
deluge).